REAPERS - Book Two: The Hunger and the Sickness

14

A knock at the door. Skinner bolted from thick slumber. His dreams had moved on from the bioluminescent jellies and cephalopods and back to old Fetterstone, that titan of stone and metal always at his back. He'd been dreaming that he was in the firing line in those prison yards—and not as one of the poor souls fated to die as he would expect... but as an executioner. He had been aiming down the crossbow's sight into the heart of the condemned and was on the very cusp of pulling his trigger when the knock came from the waking world and stirred him from the paralyzing grip of Mother Sleep (whose groom, so claimed the Book of Woe, was Father Death, the ferryman of souls who navigated the endless black oceans between the stars).

Skinner blinked, disoriented. Where was he? Not his cell. The light was so bright. Memories came flooding back in. Warden Hotch's bargain. Blood for freedom. His long walk through the slums of Camshire and into the Guts. He was hot and grimy with sweat and dirt and his mouth was full of cottonous stink. The sun beamed brightly through the inn's window. How long had he slept? He reached over and picked up his mead, untouched beyond that first sip, and brought it splashing to his lips. It was too warm and already stale but he gulped it down just as well and wiped the foam from his mouth with his sleeve. The convict rolled out of bed and went to the door and flung it open just in time to see the broad back of a hatted man who thumped down the constrained stairway. Was this the knocker? "Church!" Skinner called out. The stranger did not stop. Gone into the parlor below.

Skinner stepped into the hall and followed. He could hear the giggling of a woman from a closed door and thought, yes, after this matter with Church was handled a visit to the nanny shop would be the next order of business. He descended the stairs to find the barroom still busy even as midday approached. Drinking went 'round the clock in the Guts till the clock struck dead. The slanted boozehouse was dim. Ratty shades pulled down over the windows blocked much of the sunlight. The wide man went out the front door and disappeared into the blinding day. Skinner rushed to follow him until a voice called out from the gloom to his side: "Skinner. Over here."

Skinner turned and squinted. A man was seated in a corner barely kissed by light. His face was difficult to distinguish in the dusty haze. "You Church?" Skinner asked as he approached and pulled up a seat.

The man nodded. A claw-headed cane was hooked on the arm of his chair. He had a moustache, Skinner could now see. Dark, combed hair. But despite his prim appearance Church clearly had a rough past. Nose broken and healed over. A couple light scars on his cheek and neck. Maybe a former soldier. Maybe just some dressed-up thug. Maybe both. It hurt to look too long at his face. Skinner felt hungover though he had barely a sip of that rotgut. He thumbed the door. "And who was the other blood?"

Church held out a rolled cigarette for Skinner who took it. The repeater looked at the other patrons as Church lit him up. All minded their own. Surely this place was chosen for that and many other good reasons. Some of these bloods might be on Warden Hotch's payroll. Perhaps all of them. Skinner took a drag and instantly his fingers and ears tingled. Smoking was another pleasure he'd been denied for too long. Perhaps in less secure parts of Fetterstone an inmate could get his hands on some dryleaf or dogweed but not in Skinner's particular hole.

Church fished out another smoke for himself. "First and foremost you are not to speak your employer's name. Never again in all your life." He lit his cigarette and took a drag. The man had a very casual way about him. It was clear he gave not an atom of a damn. "I have some instructions for you." Church reached into a pocket and produced an envelope which he set on the table and slid over to Skinner.

Skinner picked it up and felt a small dense object within. He dumped the contents onto the table. Charcoal, flaking with dust, some false identification papers ('Thorm Deeks,' laborer) and a folded blank sheet.